Social conservatives make big money plans

Ralph Reed's group is one of several involved in the planning. | AP Photo

And, while there was no love lost for Rove among the crew gathered at the Ritz, there were representatives from several fiscally conservative groups that have at times worked to minimize social issues. Yet, there was ample talk of finding common ground in an effort to avert damaging intraparty fighting headed into November. “Certainly, I would think anybody who is trying to crush any element of the Republican coalition is wrong,” Meese said in a brief interview outside the ballroom hosting the summit.

Attendees included Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots, and operatives from various groups in the Kochs’ fiscally conservative network, including the Themis voter data project, and the nonprofits 60 Plus Association, American Commitment and Americans for Limited Government.

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Jim DeMint and Arthur Brooks — presidents of The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, respectively — sat on a panel entitled “Why conservative leaders and organizations must unite and work together to achieve shared goals,” while megadonor Todd Ricketts called for an end to big money conservative infighting between the tea party and the establishment.

“We can fight all we want inside the house, but once we leave the house, we’re family, and we have to stick together,” Ricketts said, quoting his mother, according to an attendee.

Ricketts, whose Ending Spending super PAC spent more than $175,000 boosting Cuccinelli’s failed gubernatorial bid, also bemoaned the lack of donor support for the socially conservative former attorney general.

Republican campaigns have long relied on social conservatives for grass-roots muscle in getting out the vote, but the GOP would benefit if their issues were highlighted more broadly, argued Cannon. He said he made a similar case during a panel at the Ritz called “Recapturing a Fusionist Conservative Movement.” And his 501(c)(4) operation, American Principles In Action, produced an entire white paper in October refuting the assertion in the RNC’s so-called autopsy report that the party “must change our tone — especially on certain social issues that are turning off young voters” and women.

American Principles In Action’s paper, issued in October, argued that such a tactic “would likely consign the GOP to a permanent minority status,” whereas emphasizing social issues will help rally the base and attract coveted demographics with which the GOP has struggled, including Hispanics and women.

”Social conservatives need to take things into their own hands and can’t rely on the establishment to make that case to donors or voters,” said Cannon, who managed Bauer’s long-shot 2000 presidential campaign. “We need to alert donors who care about social issues that, without financial support behind those issues themselves, you have a consulting class of the party that’s decided that those issues need to be jettisoned.”

The super PAC’s biggest disclosed donor, a hedge funder named Fieler, who gave $54,000 when it first started, is actively recruiting other wealthy donors by arguing that groups like Crossroads and the pro-Romney Restore Our Future super PAC dropped the ball in 2012 by shying away from social issues.

“What we’re discovering and what the election of 2012 helped reveal is that this very narrow security and prosperity message doesn’t produce a winning coalition, certainly at a national level,” said Fieler, who actually donated $50,000 to Restore Our Future last year and is an emerging mid-tier megadonor.

He told POLITICO there’s a chance to reorder the conservative movement — and American politics as a whole — by revealing Democrats to be “their own worst enemy” on social issues like abortion and gay marriage.

“The rigidity and extremism they have around some of these issues is so out of step with the American electorate that there is enormous opportunity for Republicans. We have to pick some spots and win some elections and frame the debate in a way that’s favorable to us,” he said, predicting that a win or two in 2014 in purple states would yield big things in 2016. “Nothing breeds success like success. If we can show that integrated conservatism which embraces a middle class and a resonant economic message as well as a pro-family socially conservative message is the winning formula, then I think there will be a lot of money for that.”

American Principles works with the anti-abortion rights heavyweight Susan B. Anthony List and Bauer’s groups, said Cannon, “but nothing exists on the scale on the social issues side of the Koch operation or the Crossroads operation.”

Increasing coordination will be key to executing the social conservative resurgence in the big money era, the donor Gregory said in an interview at the Ritz after the sideline meeting.

“There are numerous groups that have their donor base, and they tend to operate monolithically and protect what they’ve got,” said Gregory, who made his fortune at the helm of a pharmaceutical company. “But I think there is an increased sense of the need to work together more that hasn’t existed in the past.”